The art trade

A painting swapped for a dental crown -- or for rent -- artists really know how to make a deal

By REGINA HACKETT, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER ART CRITIC

Published
10:00 pm PDT, Monday, August 13, 2001

Susanna Dent has learned that artwork can sometimes be exchanged for a person's life. She holds one of her paintings similar to the one she handed over to her mugger. Click for a larger image

Susanna Dent has learned that artwork can sometimes be exchanged for a person's life. She holds one of her paintings similar to the one she handed over to her mugger. Click for a larger image

Photo: GILBERT W. ARIAS/P-I

Photo: GILBERT W. ARIAS/P-I

Image
1of/5

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 5

Susanna Dent has learned that artwork can sometimes be exchanged for a person's life. She holds one of her paintings similar to the one she handed over to her mugger. Click for a larger image

Susanna Dent has learned that artwork can sometimes be exchanged for a person's life. She holds one of her paintings similar to the one she handed over to her mugger. Click for a larger image

Photo: GILBERT W. ARIAS/P-I

The art trade

1 / 5

Back to Gallery

Susanna Dent will never forget the night she found a stranger in her studio in Manhattan's TriBeca district.

He had a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face and pointed a gun at her head. She had time to notice his blue eyes and expensive haircut before he made what struck her as a bewildering demand: Your art or your life.

"He told me he knew I was famous and my paintings worth a lot of money," she said. "I realized almost immediately that he must have intended to break into Donald Sultan's studio on the floor below mine."

Sultan's smallest paintings might sell for $30,000 each. Dent's go for roughly $1,000, and then only through a gallery. How do you tell a thief with a gun he's on the wrong floor?

You don't.

"I didn't want to argue with him," she said. Nervous as she was, she proceeded to impersonate the famous artist of her intruder's dreams, handing him two shopping bags filled with small paintings he selected, three bright yet delicate abstractions per bag.

Three years later and living in Seattle, Dent is participating in "Art Swap," an exhibit exploring the subject of visual artists and the underground economy. Organized as part of Bumbershoot, it opens Aug. 28 at noon in Seattle Center's Northwest Courts. Admission is free before the festival opens on Aug. 31 and it will remain on view until the festival closes Sept. 3.

Although Dent is the only artist in the show with such a dramatic tale to tell, she's not the only one with a good story. Each of the 37 artists featured will be represented by an artwork for sale and one for trade, along with the printed text of each artist's favorite deal.

Painter Molly Curtis recently traded for rent. "My handsome, swashbuckling landlord said he was increasing my rent from $250 to $5,000 per month," she said. Before she went into shock, he added an escape clause. If she'd create a painting a year for him, he'd leave the rent at its old, low level.

Naturally, she took door No. 2. "He said he hung the painting in his bedroom," she said, "but he hasn't invited me over to see it."

Painter Marion Peck traded for a year of therapy. "I painted a sad seal on the beach, oinking helplessly."

What if everybody did this? What if plumbers traded with carpenters, car mechanics with violinists, dress designers with baby sitters, gardeners with computer experts?

"The truth is, they do," said artist Tammy Spears, who organized the show with Debbi Lester, publisher of the monthly magazine Art Access. "Trading for goods and services has gone on forever. Maybe artists tend to do it more than other people, if only because artists don't always make enough money to pay for things they need and want."

That's what the underground economy is, an exchange system that flies under the radar of credit bureaus and taxes. Just how common is it among artists?

"I don't know too many who haven't at least traded with other artists," said painter Drake Deknatel. His exchanges include art and go beyond it. He has traded for a Les Paul Gold Top guitar, a Walther PPK and a Winchester. "I traded for a car, but it wasn't much of a car. I've traded for art, food, clothing and a year of tutoring for my daughter."

She was in early adolescence when she arrived at his door. "Her mother lives with a toothless logger in the Oregon woods," Deknatel said. "School wasn't important to them." He calls the tutoring his tip-top trade, because after it his daughter was able to go to school at the grade level appropriate for her age and do well.

Some trades falter. Shawn Ferris once heard from a baker who wanted a painting Ferris had done of eggs. "She wrote and told me she'd admired me from afar," Ferris said. "It sounded like a love letter." The baker wanted to exchange a cake for the painting, but Ferris didn't bite. "I can't imagine the cake that would be worth the painting."

A more successful story comes from artist Alex Ohge, who traded for a washer/dryer. Painter Larry Bemm traded for haircuts. Stranger cartoonist Ellen Forney traded her dentist for a gold crown, painting him a woman wearing a gold crown on her head and sporting a pelt of real fake fur. Jessica Dodge traded with a lawyer for her divorce.

Printer Blake Haygood got his floors refinished. Ceramic sculptor Bridget Young exchanged her work for kiln time and, "like everybody else," for art of other artists.

Painter and curator Spears thinks artist trades with other artists can be uncomfortable. "Suppose I really like somebody's work and want to trade," she said. "How do I know that person wants to trade with me? It's awkward and hard to bring up. I was thinking, how about an artist-trade Web site? There's a love connection, how about an art connection? 'Art Swap' gets the subject out in the open."